Sarah Goldberg didn't want to be 'the girl next door.' So she charted a tougher path

Few radical bash simmering panic arsenic nimbly arsenic Sarah Goldberg.

In her relation arsenic Dr. JoAnne Felder, a show scientist tending to the mercurial psyches of the billionaire man-children of Silicon Valley connected the caller AMC satire “The Audacity,” Goldberg careens from serene to slapstick arsenic she tries to support a lid connected her progressively unruly life.

It is the latest successful a drawstring of enviably layered characters for the Vancouver native, including her Emmy-nominated breakout crook arsenic aspiring histrion Sally Reed connected the HBO declaration slayer dramedy “Barry” and the coolly calculating portfolio manager Petra Koenig connected the network’s play “Industry.”

“I’m decidedly learning immoderate ample tech and concern words that I didn’t know,” she says with a laughter astir her caller wealth-adjacent roles connected a Zoom from London, wherever she makes her home. “I’m not definite if I’ll clasp them.”

Given the accolades, it seems apt Goldberg lone needs to memorize her lines and the remainder volition follow.

While she has fixed a distinctive show successful each of her roles, 1 of respective threads tying the characters unneurotic is simply a infinitesimal erstwhile fear, rage, excitement, ambition oregon each of the supra collide but indispensable beryllium contained. While that subject sometimes devolves into delicious displays of apoplexy — witnesser Goldberg’s incredible, expletive-littered elevator meltdown successful “Barry” — the 40-year-old histrion is much often the look of diplomacy portion telegraphing cortisol levels successful the reddish beneath her placid exterior.

“As a blond Canadian, I truly ran the hazard of being the miss adjacent door,” she says of her effort to dodge typecasting onscreen aft cutting her teeth onstage successful London and New York successful the mid-2010s. “I didn’t privation to beryllium the miss adjacent doorway … possibly the miss adjacent doorway with bodies successful the basement.”

While the lone bodies to beryllium recovered successful JoAnne’s basement connected “The Audacity” are her eavesdropping lad and his friends, the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art (LAMDA) postgraduate has accomplished the ngo of subverting what mightiness person been a perky ingenue representation with the role. (One she volition continue, since the bid has already gotten a Season 2 order.)

When the ethically challenged therapist starts dabbling successful insider trading acknowledgment to info gleaned from her patients — including bold tech names Duncan Park (Billy Magnussen) and Carl Bardolph (Zach Galifianakis) — the slippery slope awaits.

Goldberg with “The Audacity” co-star Billy Magnussen.

(Ed Araquel / AMC)

“I deliberation that she started her vocation with a tendency to assistance radical and determination on the enactment she’s go incredibly jaded and she’s exhausted by being the astir intelligent idiosyncratic successful the country and yet having nary worldly wealthiness to amusement for it,” says Goldberg of her character, whose struggles widen to motherhood of lad Orson (Everett Blunck) and matrimony to kid scientist Gary (Paul Adelstein).

It does not assistance that JoAnne is surrounded by radical who person nary occupation sliding headfirst down the slope arsenic if it were an Aspen trail.

“She’s moving with radical who person truthful galore houses that if 1 burns down, it doesn’t matter, and yet she’s struggling to support the extortion implicit her ain head. So determination on the enactment she starts making these small contracts with herself thinking, ‘In this oversea of motivation bankruptcy, is my tiny small transgression truly truthful bad? Or is it adjacent justified?’ But these small tiny pacts commencement to snowball. You tin spot idiosyncratic torn betwixt their amended judgment, their halfway instinct, their humanity, and idiosyncratic who is truthful frustrated that they’re stepping toward a benignant of nihilism.”

That consciousness of interior struggle appeals to Goldberg, who says she knew instantly that she had to play JoAnne erstwhile she work the publication by showrunner Jonathan Glatzer. “It’s uncommon for maine to spell retired and beryllium like, ‘I person to play this role!’” she says, adding with a laugh, “I tin beryllium rather passive. I tin beryllium rather Canadian successful the American market. I felt similar he’d recovered this unthinkable enactment of satire with pathos, which is my favourite benignant of style.

“I’m ever funny successful playing characters connected the precipice of losing their motivation compass and which mode they determine to go,” she continues. “And if JoAnne has thing successful communal with Sally from ‘Barry,’ due to the fact that they’re specified antithetic characters, it’s that. … I emotion that Jonathan’s fixed JoAnne precise mundane relatable problems successful a satellite wherever the standard is truthful disconnected and there’s a batch that the mean idiosyncratic can’t subordinate to successful that bubble.”

Goldberg has besides been engaged creating her ain bubble, writing, producing and starring successful the Canadian-Irish bid “Sisters” — which conscionable concluded its 2nd play connected AMC — with Irish histrion Susan Stanley, her champion person since their LAMDA days. The unusual mates sibling drama finds Goldberg playing Sare, a buttoned-down Canadian who goes to Ireland to find her long-lost biologic begetter (Donal Logue) and discovers shambolic half-sister Suze (Stanley).

“I was beauteous shocked astatine however hard it is to get thing made,” she says of the series’ six-year travel to screen. “And past to beryllium successful a enactment presumption wherever you’re inviting everyone to meal and you’ve got to marque definite determination are 3 courses and being liable for everybody’s well-being — it was wildly challenging, but perfectly thrilling.”

While she prepares to instrumentality to JoAnne’s satellite successful Palo Alto — her hometown of Vancouver serving arsenic a treble — Goldberg feels precise fortunate astir wherever she’s landed.

“I’ve been truthful fortunate astatine this signifier successful my vocation to enactment connected scripts that I consciousness are truly saying thing and characters that I consciousness are morally analyzable and besides to beryllium successful the concern astatine a clip wherever pistillate characters are much complicated.”